


Dragon's Eye

by gardnerhill



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Coma, Community: watsons_woes, Flashbacks, Gen, Hospitals, Nightmares, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-20
Updated: 2013-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-08 20:10:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>London General Hospital, September 1918</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dragon's Eye

**Author's Note:**

> For the Watsons Woes prompt for July 31 2011: 

_Look me in the eye._

It was a cave. Only a cave. A horrid sink-hole that led nowhere.

It glared at him. Not a cave but the eye of a beast, a great stone beast made of the very earth itself. Mocking his weakness, his cruel inability to die.

_Where are your men, Major Watson? Where did they go?_

Swallowed into the earth and dead, rain and mud and artillery drowning his shouts, his cries for help.

They were all lost in that great inhuman eye, so young so heartbreakingly young, pale, accusing, leading this creature to where he had been hidden.

_Look for them, Major Watson. Find your men, and then you can sleep in peace once again._

Into that terrible eye, that gaping pit in the earth. It gleamed with pleasure as Watson reached out to begin his descent. He touched the gleaming white part of the stone eye.

It was solid under his hand. A white-tipped walking stick, jammed into the stony earth before the cave. He knew that stick nearly as well as he knew his own.

Pain – a deep nostalgic ache filled his body. He felt the steady, reassuring press of a familiar hand on his shoulder, the same one he had given in sorrow and loss. His guilt and shame fled.

_Look for them! Find your men! Come to me!_

It was only a stone cave that looked like a monstrous eye.

He stared into the abyss. "My men died in a terrible fashion, in the middle of a terrible war. That I survived was pure chance. I have a duty to the living while I yet live – to remember and honour the dead, to comfort their loved ones, to do what I can to lessen the number of lost lives. Leave me alone. I have work to do."

The eye – the cave – faded from his sight. The stick was still in his hand. He squeezed it, gratefully.

It squeezed back. Its voice was familiar.

"Yes. Yes! Good show, old man! You're still with us. Now open your eyes and prove this hospital full of idiots wrong!"


End file.
